A Musical History (W/DVD) [Box set]

The Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 27, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 6
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000B19B6M
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,000 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The Band: A Musical History is a labor of love, and Executive Producer/Band member Robbie Robertson has built something truly impressive in the form of this five CD, one DVD, and 108-page hardcover book collection. The book alone will impress just about any music enthusiast. From its candid photographs of artists from Bob Dylan to Janis Joplin, to a detailed history of the Bend written by Grammy Award-winning musicologist Rob Bowman, it's well worth the price of admission. The 102-song collection follows the group's progression from their earliest of days, pre-Band, circa 1963, as background players for Toronto blues/rocker Ronnie Hawkins, to their final studio recording, "Out of the Blue" laid down in 1977. The box also includes 30 previously unreleased songs. On that list you’ll find everything from early versions of Band tunes to "song sketches" (pieces for which the lyrics may have been unfinished, but, as in the case of the late Richard Manuel’s soulful "Beautiful Thing," the emotion is captured just the same. Equally impressive is the DVD, which is filled with newly-issued live performances. These include a rough-but-wonderful songs from the Festival Express train tour, two tracks from a Wembley Stadium concert (admittedly the weakest sonically and visually on the disc) and three songs recorded for Saturday Night Live, including an endearing cover of "Georgia On My Mind." This amazing box set isn't just for Band fans; anyone who loves the music of the '60s and '70s could spend dozens of hours lost in this incredible collection. --Denise Sheppard

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

124 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Supplementary rather than complementary, October 3, 2005

By 

Sherringford Clark (Mayor's Income, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Musical History (W/DVD) (Audio CD)

Of course, the material on "A Musical History" is excellent, The Band being one of the finest rock groups ever. Moreover, this box really does chart the musical history of The Band in chronological order, including material with Ronnie Hawkins and Dylan as well as material as Levon and the Hawks. Although it is comprehensive, the greatest flaw of "A Musical History" is that it has too much material for the casual fan and too little for the hard-core fan of The Band.

The biggest problem is that "A Musical History" does not present the full musical picture of The Band. There are a lot of gaps in the story: nothing form the two albums with John Hammond, none of the songs with Tiny Tim, and not enough songs from their later studio albums (no "Hobo Jungle", no "Knockin' Lost John," no "A Change is Gonna Come"). This set selects the same songs from the albums as other anthologies. Moreover, it would have been nice to include songs from side projects and maybe even solo albums as well as material from the post-Last Waltz edition of The Band, but I can see why they wouldn't do so.

Moreover, I have a problem with the selection of material. They include two versions of "Don't Do It," both previously released, but exclude only one song from "Stage Fright" - "Sleeping," one of the highlights of the album. The set also includes vastly inferior versions of album songs like the jazzy version of "Lonesome Suzie" which John Simon himself describes as "inappropriate." These kind of inclusions and omissions show that this set cannot be regarded as the full musical portrait of The Band.

The unreleased live material that is included is excellent (esp. "Smoke Signal" and the version of "Forbidden Fruit" with horns) and a real treasure, but it would be nice to hear the entire Royal Albert Hall concert. For some reason, they remixed the songs from "Rock of Ages," and I don't think it's an improvement. In addition, I would have loved to hear a live version of "Saved" from the 1973 shows at Watkins Glen or Roosevelt Stadium, which are some of the best among The Band's live gigs.

Another big problem is that the set relies on material already released on the remastered albums. Also, it seems like much of the unreleased material is just leftovers. Though it is no leftover, I doubt that the live "Smoke Signal" was just discovered, but rather I think they purposely held it back for this box set, as they probably did with other cuts. I think that there is probably more material in the vaults.

A lot of the so-called unreleased material is often barely so: the original mix of the disappointing "Key to the Highway," from the "Big Pink" remaster. The live "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is only a rarity, as it is available on the Bob Dylan "Masterpieces" three-CD set. Yet, there are a few gems: the unreleased Richard Manuel composition "Words and Numbers." Another great performance is The Band's cover of "Baby Lou," a little known song by Jimmy Drew.

One of the Rick Danko compositions was really great - "Home Cookin" - the lyrics are pure Rick and among his best songs. Great guitar solo from Robbie too. Indeed, "Home Cookin" should have made the cut for "Islands," as it's better than many of those songs. On the other hand, the "Two Piano Song" from Robertson's aborted "Works" project is forgettable, better than the horrific elevator muzak of "Islands" but not as good as the "Theme from the Last Waltz."

It would have been nice to hear more material with Bob, especially more Basement Tapes material, different selections from "Planet Waves," more unreleased songs from TOur '74, like "Hero Blues" or somehting.

The DVD should have included more footage as well. I know there is more video footage: "Up on Cripple Creek" on Ed Sullivan and their Woodstock performance, at least.

Though the package is handsome (the nicest I've ever seen), the housing for the CD's is annoying. Moreover, Bowman simply reused the bulk of the liner notes from those for the remastered series, and his notes are unsatisfactory and frequently just fluff.

I know that most of these complaints are relatively minor, but they add up to an incomplete picture of The Band's legacy. Again the biggest problems are the dearth of unreleased material and the gaps in the musical history. If Levon and The Hawks are going to be getting eight CD's in the forthcoming Other People's Music set, shouldn't The Band have gotten more than five or six? In the end, this set does not complete the story of The Band - you still need the studio albums, of course. Thus, "A Musical History" is not complementary but supplementary, but it is still a welcome supplement to any true fan of The Band; it seems that Capitol is finally showing The Band the respect they deserve.

107 of 121 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Across the great divide, September 30, 2005

By 

o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Musical History (W/DVD) (Audio CD)

Is this a great time to be a Canadian or what? Gordon Lightfoot is back on tour and in the studio, Joni Mitchell is re-considering her retirement, Neil Young has just released a watershed CD, Ashley Mac Isaac and Lennie Gallant have CDs on the horizon, even my Stephenson cousins in Aylmer are having thetime of their lives. And then along comes HISTORY. This is as complete and as balanced a review of the career of an amazing band as you'll ever cull into a box set. The novice isn't likely to embrace this, so it's pitched at the choir and the gems herein are a revelation. Beginning with their early start as Levon & The Hawks, through the Ronnie Hawkins and Dylan apprenticeships, their rise in the North American Collective Unconscious is so well documented that this really is archival, seminal, nearly anthropological in scope and breath. An entire epoch on the North American shelf was chronicled in these songs and in the course of the lives of these 4 Canadians and their Arkansas brother.
And what a history it has been. Their well known are wellprepresented, sometimes in alternate takes, and their swan song is echoed as the set comes to a conclusion appropriately with their collaboration with Emmylou Harris on "Evangeline" and the Staples on "The Weight." Roots music was never this good again.
And too often it seems like this is just part of the Robbie Robertson story, but this set sets that assumption to rest. Their post Band careers bore out that it was the synthesis of the 5 of them that created this history. The emotionally and psychologically fragile Richard Manuel gave them a vocie of terror at the weight of the world. Levon Helm brough an authenticity that could only have come from someone who knew what it was like to scratch the earth and hope for crops. Rick Danko brought a wizened view, remarkable for his age. Hudson made it all that much more incendiary by playing everything. The box set leaves no one uncredited for how and why this Band was so great.
In the years since, first Manuel, then Danko have left us. Danko had an important career going with Eric Andersen and Jonas Fjeld, but his heart gave out. Any of those trio records are worth seeking out - they came closest to surpassing what he did in the Band. Robbie has virtually disappeared behind his archive. Helm and Hudson have barely survived bouts with cancer, bankruptcy and heart disease. Like The Beatles, as they leave this world, they remind us how special their gifts to us were. And this is a worthy addition to their canon for the long view it gives of their creative genius.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adds most of the missing pieces of the puzzle, January 11, 2006

By 

David A. Bede (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Musical History (W/DVD) (Audio CD)

The first Band box-set, "Across the Great Divide," was a disappointing ripoff, so this is long overdue. And it's also worth the wait! Others have criticized this set for having nothing completists won't already have. I disagree. I've been a serious Band fan for about a decade, and there are rarities on here that I'd never even heard of until now. So for all but the hardest of hardcore fans, this is a welcome surprise. Not perfect, but close enough.

If the accompanying book is correct, even the Band members themselves had forgotten about a couple of the previously unreleased tracks. As for the rest of us, if there's a mid-60s recording you've heard of but never heard up to now, chances are it's here. The 1964 single "Uh Uh Uh"/"Leave Me Alone" - which was considered "lost" a few years ago - is here, and it sounds terrific. All three of the 1965 Atco sides are here (only one, "He Don't Love You," was previously available on CD). The studio recording of their cover of Bobby Blue Bland's "Honky Tonk" was an especially nice surprise for me; I'd heard an extremely low-fi live recording of it before but didn't know they'd ever officially recorded it. There are a few surprises among their better-known work as well, notably the newly restored coda in "To Kingdom Come."

What is less satisfying is the selection of previously released tracks. I know no box set is ever going to satisfy all of a given act's fans, but the previously-released portion of this set seems particularly haphazard, especially the recordings with Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan. Where is "High Blood Pressure," the only Hawkins single on which Robbie, Levon, Rick, Richard and Garth all played? What about the myriad still-unreleased Basement Tapes that are rumored to exist? (There are a few new releases from those sessions here, including a great early version of "Caledonia Mission," but if the rumors are true it's still a drop in the bucket.) And why does every Band best-of have to include the supremely overrated "It Makes No Difference" and omit the beautiful "Hobo Jungle"?

Minor complaints, I concede, especially since anyone who likes the Band well enough to shell out for this collection will probably also have most or all of their original albums anyhow. The DVD is a great addition as well, particularly the Saturday Night Live performances from just a few weeks before The Last Waltz. Seeing the guys play together at that late date is almost surreal for those of us who know, er, the shape they were in, if you will. If you want everything, this will get you close to it, at least.